Dairy Industry Cruelty Complaint Awaits Response From Delhi City Government

February 3, 2018

The Delhi High Court is seeking a response from city government, civic bodies, and the Animal Welfare Board regarding a plea claiming that the city’s dairy farms inflict “massive cruelty” on animals.

Animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi filed the petition, which aims to ensure that dairies follow minimum standards prescribed under the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

The petition states that cows are injected with the hormone oxytocin to boost milk production, which is illegal under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. It also states that newborn calves are separated from their mothers to prevent them from drinking their mothers’ milk. This practice is very common in the dairy industry. In a 2000 interview, Women and Child Development minister Maneka Gandhi explained:

No cow lives out her normal life span. She is milked, made sick and then killed. Even worse happens to her child. The male calves are tied up and starved to death. Or sent to the slaughterhouses. It is not by chance that a calf is no longer called bachda in India. It is called katra, which means one who is to be killed. … In Mumbai every year 80,000 calves are forcibly put to death.

Don’t believe us? Watch this Mercy For Animals footage of calves being ripped from their mothers’ sides within hours of birth.

Maulekhi states that animals forced into dairy production are kept in atrocious conditions with no shelter from extreme weather. “Animals are tethered with such short ropes that they are unable to lift their head, turn around, groom themselves or even ward off the flies that the filthy surroundings attract,” she says. Unwanted animals, if they are not sold and transported for slaughter outside India, are abandoned on the street.

With more and more people speaking out about the brutality animals endure for dairy, there has never been a better time to choose plant-based alternatives. By removing dairy from your diet, you end your support of an abhorrently cruel industry.